Small Successes

1. Calvin’s girlfriend. Calvin’s girlfriend and I did not start out on the right foot. Part of that was Calvin’s fault. At his youthful age of 17 he portrayed us as the overprotective, religiously zealous parents that were trying to keep him down. To us he portrayed Sarah and her family as free spirits, open minded, totally open to viewing him as an adult (living in our house and driving our car of course). With Cal in the middle, each “side” only had the information Calvin wanted to feed us. So I guess it was not surprise that when we met the first time (Calvin brought her over to the house without any advanced warning when the house was not exactly at its best) we didn’t exactly warm up to each other. But over the past year the defenses have dropped and we have actually enjoyed having Sarah in our midst. This week, Sarah’s grandma became suddenly very ill, and Sarah reached out to me on Facebook in the wee morning hours, and asked me to pray for her grandmother. And suddenly I felt something more for her. Compassion for sure, definitely genuine fondness…perhaps even a maternal sort of love? I was truly touched. I prayed for her grandma and for her through unexpected tears.

2. My niece. My niece and I weren’t particularly close when she was growing up, though I wanted to be. She was my Goddaughter. But time, distance and the business of life always seemed to keep us apart. So I watched her grow up from an arms length, watching her successes and small failures at a distance and second hand. But as she has grown into a lovely young woman we have rekindled our kinshipship and formed a new relationship out of love and a mutual admiration. We are forming a new bond on our own terms. She is going to graduate this year and is also planning to be confirmed in the Catholic church. She asked me to be her sponsor, so I have been trying to facilitate the process with the DRE at my parish. As a result of that I have been copied on emails that have gone back and forth in trying to plan for her confirmation at Easter Vigil. Today I read one of her emails to the DRE that said: “I would really like to be confirmed in the Akron area because it is important to me that my godmother can be present.” And I smiled, and cried.

3. On my homeschool wall I have a big timeline that I bought at a homeschool convention years ago. It mostly goes ignored except for the time and attention I choose to spend on it. Recently, Sam was sitting in the t.v. room and said, “Mom, you know that timeline you have on the classroom wall? I never really cared about it before, but that’s actually pretty neat. I’ve been paying more attention. Good idea mom.” And although it is now probably apparent to my dear blog readers that I will cry at just about anything this side of a Hallmark Greeting Card, this one left me too dumbfounded to speak let alone cry!

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